Ken's Blog

The Full Court Press

2008-09-04T15:43:24Z

There are times when I list a home I'll reach an agreement with the Seller - a kind of middle ground - where the price isn't too high and it might just get some people through the door. I also make recommendations about de-cluttering and repairing and replacing where necessary but I don't really go all out and bring the stager in.

Well, in the next week or so I'm going to be listing a home that is in decent shape except for the the personal effects everywhere. Lots of personal photos and knick knacks and the like. It's not overly cluttered but it could use a little help.

The Seller is willing to price the house competitively, very competitively. She also wants it sold by the end of the year which means that we need to find a buyer fairly quickly in order to get through the inspection, title and lending processes.

So, this time I'm doing the full court press. I'm bringing the stager in and the the Virtual Tour photographer in behind the stager then the postcards to the neighborhood for the Open House so all the neighbors can take a gander and maybe, just maybe, a legitimate buyer (with or without and agent) or two.

Marketing all over the Internet. I may even break loose and do a print ad (although that's low on the list).

I've had some pretty positive experiences lately so I feel pretty goood about this particular house. But, I will not slack off on this one. It's back to basics.

Clinton, MD Home Near Andrews AFB ... New Updates and Lower Price

2008-09-02T20:26:07Z

The owner of this lovely three bedroom Colonial style home recently installed all new carpeting and vinyl flooring in the two and a half baths and kitchen and foyer areas. It's been cleaned up, spruced up and - best of all - the price has been lowered to what a lot of townhouses might cost.

Check it out!

Done Deal...fast

2008-09-01T10:46:49Z

I've been writing recently about a townhouse I had listed in Laurel that had run into a few, er, challenges along the way.

There was the friend of the Sellers who had agreed to do some contracting work on the Sellers house to get it ready for sale. It involved tearing up the old (really old) carpet and installing a bamboo laminate. It involved some painting and dry wall work. The real challenge with this arrangement was that the friend was not a professional contractor. He had another real day job doing something completely different. This was just something he was doing as a favor to his friend.

That took about three months. Time the house could have been on the market had the Sellers shelled out some cash to a pro to just rip up the old carpet and put down some new and get a handyman in to do the painting and drywall.

By this time, the Seller was really, really, anxious to sell the house. They had moved out and away and didn't like the idea of paying two mortgages.

They agreed upon a price and we put it out there. Bam! Within days, we were getting multiple offers. Of course, some were of the "let's low ball the heck out of them just to see" type offers but one came in that was pretty nice. Then there was the inspections issues. We got past those with lowering the price and selling in "as is" condition (luckily we had a motivated buyer).

So, the whole ting took something less than 30 days from the day it was in the MLS to the day of settlement. A buyer that wanted to buy and a seller that wanted to sell.

This is the real bottom line -- the sellers had equity in their home. Yes, they had a smallish mortgage on it but they had plenty of room to sell the house. The Sellers were willing to price the home to sell. Not to grab that last $1,000 or to price it high and negotiate down or any of the other typical strategies that aren't working in today's market. The Sellers were very clear. Sell the house.

Luckily, we had a buyer with an agent that knew that at the price we had the home listed for that there would probably be multiple offers. So she made a good offer -- much better than all the others -- and it gave us the room we needed to work with the inspection issue.

In the end, the buyer (with the help of a VA loan and lots of closing help from the Seller) bought the house for ZERO money out-of-pocket, the Sellers got a nice check for the equity (minus costs) they had in their home, the Realtors got paid and everybody was smiling!

The Offer, the Inspection and the Money

2008-08-25T20:06:27Z

In a recent post about Counting Chickens Before They're Hatched, I mentioned that I feeling pretty good about things until the inspection came along and had a lot of stuff on there that the Seller really hadn't expected.

Of course, the Seller had all their money tied up in the house and, to make matters even more interesting, the Sellers had moved out of the area and weren't planing on coming back. So here we were with lots of little and not-so-little repair items, a Seller with no money (yet) and me facing the possibility of coordinating multiple contractors to do various things around the house. Not pretty.

Even if the Seller had money, they had already given up the max the lender would allow in closing help at the time of the offer. You see, the buyer wanted every last nickel out of the deal and really didn't have a lot of cash to complete the purchase anyway. So they put all the closing help they could get in the offer and the Seller, wanting to sell the house, agreed.

Now, with the inspection completed there was no more money to give and the Seller (or me, for that matter) didn't want to mess around calling various contractors to fix what the buyer wanted fixed.

We came up with two solutions: release the contract and give the buyer they're earnest money back or negotiate a lower sales price and proportionately lower closing costs credit and sell the house in "as is" condition -- no repairs.

I guess the buyer really wanted the house, after all. They agreed to accept the lower sales price and the house in "as is" condition with no repairs.

To my way of thinking this was a kind of win-win solution. The buyer gets a less expensive house with a smaller mortgage payment and, even though there were repair issues, the buyer evidently can deal with it. The seller gets to sell their house with out the headache of repairs. The Realtor makes out because he doesn't have to coordinate all the repairs....and might even get paid sooner rather than later.

Of course, the fat lady hasn't sung yet. We haven't gone to settlement and since the Sellers are out of town they have to get documents signed and notarized and back to the title company up here for everything to get done.

We are getting closer, though.

I guess what I've learned from this is that it isn't always the best thing to wring every last penny from the Seller right at the time of the offer. Maybe leaving some to take care of inspection issues might work. I'm sure not every Seller could or would lower their selling price.

Counting Chickens Before They're Hatched

2008-08-19T20:37:35Z

In this post, I was doing a little bragging about how if a house is priced right and in decent condition it'll receive multiple offers...even in this market! I was feeling pretty proud of myself (and the Seller) for getting the house into decent showing condition and pricing it so aggressively that it couldn't be ignored.

Well, a good offer came through and everything was moving along until we got to the home inspection. It seems that home inspector found lots and lots of stuff. Some of it pretty minor, other stuff that are in the not-so-minor category. The bottom line, though, is that the Seller is tapped until the proceeds from the sale are distributed and they've already given up the max in the way of closing help.

So now the negotiation with the Buyer's agent begins. Hopefully, this will have a happy ending but it's possible the home may go back on the market.

I'm not a real fan of that since everyone always asks, "What happened to the first contract?" And the price is almost always lower.

So, the moral to this story is to never count your chickens before they're hatched and certainly don't count the proceeds (or commission) before the ink is dry at the settlement table. It seems rare that things go smoothly from beginning to end......

Can Down Payment Assistance be Revived? Should it be?

2008-08-15T21:02:19Z

Last night, Congress introduced bipartisan legislation, H.R. 6694 that would reauthorize and reform charitable downpayment assistance. This bill would remedy a harmful provision in the new housing law which limits homeownership opportunities for low and middle-income Americans. The legislation, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Al Green (D-TX), Gary Miller (R-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Christopher Shays (R-CT) reauthorizes and reforms charitable downpayment assistance funded in part by sellers, which has helped over one million families and individuals become homeowners since 1999. The program was eliminated by legislation signed by President Bush on July 30, 2008.

The Green-Miller-Waters-Shays plan would re-authorize and reform non-profit downpayment assistance and secure it as an allowable source for FHA borrowers. The bill seeks to ensure that providers of the downpayment assistance operate in a transparent manner to guard against conflicts of interest. The bill also includes language to ensure that FHA maintains its financial stability by permanently authorizing the Secretary to assess higher premiums to higher risk borrowers. It is important that you contact your elected officials in Congress and tell them that you support downpayment assistance and urge them to support H. R. 6694.

To reach your elected officials, please call the US Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121. To learn how you can support it, visit Click Here.

Priced Right + Good Condition = Multiple Offers

2008-08-14T08:52:50Z

It always amazes me that when a home is priced aggressively right out of the gate and looks even half decent -- not Martha Stweart but nice -- that multiple offers start ot come in almost immediately.

My clients who own the townhouse in this post in gorgeous and historic Laurel, MD had lived in it for 28 years. It wasn't paid off because they had refinanced to get some cash out at one point but they had plenty of equity and it was in no way, shape or form anywhere near short sale or foreclosure status. It was a plain vanilla, regular-regular sale.

They had moved out and they want to sell the house. Sure. They would like to get as much as they could but their main motivation was to sell the house.

So, they had made some home improvements and priced the home aggressively. Lo and behold! Multiple offers started coming in by Day 2. Some were the "This is a Buyer's Market and I'm going to low ball the Seller." type offers but one came in that it showed the Buyer obviously wanted to buy a house and this was the one.

This is the second home in the past six months (for which I have been the listing agent) that has received multiple offers within the first week the home was on the market

in the worst real estate market known to mankind and
mortgages going only to those who can afford to re-pay them.

This only reinforces, confirms, corroborates and verifies the guiding truth in all real estate sales -- if you want to sell your house you have to price it correctly for the market and it has to be in good condition.

"Let's try higher, just to see." "We can always come down." "I'm not giving my house away."

Those are all great --- only if you don't care if your house sells or not.

DIY or Contractor? Which Increases the Value of Your Home?

2008-08-08T19:47:29Z

It is almost always surprising to me that when I go to visit someone thinking about allowing me to assist with the sale of their home they are always so proud of the things that they have done to fix the place up. It doesn't matter if it's a simple thing like a new bathroom vanity or a full blown addition. If the homeowner had a hand in actually completing the project the value it brings to their home skyrockets.

For example, I have a client who is a competent professional. He's very good at what he does and gets paid well for it. What he does, though, has nothing whatsoever to do with home improvement. He is not a carpenter, electrician, plumber, roofer or any of those other great occupations that help keep what is left of the housing industry rolling along. He is pretty handy and can do a lot of the "homeowner chores" that a lot of people would normally call in the professionals to handle.

Yet, some of his major improvements really do look like "happy homeowner" jobs. Some of the details are missing, you can see where he "made do" by cobbling things together. The electrical is a little out of code with visible wiring, some of the plumbing doesn't exactly connect correctly. You get the picture.

This is in stark contrast to what a professional contractor would do. Hopefully, if you get someone good and competent, they'll make sure things are done and done right. Yes, they'll charge you for it and sometimes charge you a lot. However, when it comes time to sell your home, it'll really show that you cared about how things turned out and, depending on what it is you had done, will actually increase the value of your house.

I'll be the first to admit that there is a lot of satisfaction and sense of achievement in doing something yourself and having it turn out decently. Unfortunately, you can't take that sense of achievement to the bank. So, if you're thinking of doing something more than fixing a leaky faucet or painting, please hire a pro to do it. Because you may just end up paying for them to do it anyway when the time comes to sell your home.

Does The Squeaky Floor Get The Grease?

2008-08-03T09:28:39Z

We've all been in homes that have squeaky floors and squeaky stairs. Sometimes, in the older Victoriens, the squeaks actually add a bit of character to the home. In the newer places (meaning 20 years or younger) the squeakiness can be downright distracting.

I'm posting this blog for two reasons:

Does anyone run into either "showing" issues or "inspection" issues around squeaky floors?
How do you get rid of them?

I actually have a squeaky floor in my personal abode and it's not just in one place. I've been told my place is one of those modular homes that was built in a facotry and the trucked in to place on a foundation. It's a nice place and, for the most part, holding up well (built in '94) but the %^#*! floor squeaks!

Just curious.

The New and Improved SafeMLS token from MRIS

2008-08-01T14:40:54Z

I wish I had a camera that would do justice to the new token. I tried but my "close ups" all look blurrier than a Saturday night after 4 Martguerita's.

MRIS has rolled out a new token in Prince George's County. It's significantly smaller (yay!) and the "code" is all numeric so I can type it in on the numeric keypad while I'm holding the token in my other hand. It's a lot easier and a lot quicker.

The smallness of it makes it a lot easier to carry on my keychain, too. I no longer feel like I'm leaning to whatever side I place my keys (being a guy, it's usually one pocket or the other) and even though the numbers are smaller, at least they're easy to read and easy to input.

No, I'm not a shill for MRIS. I still dislike the fact that I have to carry a token at all. I still hate runnung back and forth between my computer and my kitchen counter (where I normally leave my keys) or leaving my keys near a computer that I use when I visit my office.

But I have to give MRIS "A" for effort. At least they're trying and this new token is a big improvement.

A Home With A Price To Notice -- Offered for only $344,900

2008-07-30T16:25:27Z

I had a nice heart-to-heart with the Seller of this wonderful 3 bedroom rambler and he agreed that a price reduction was in order. It's in a fabulous location -- a short bike ride to the University of MD, near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USDA and METRO. That's right! You can be at the Greenbelt or College Park METRO station within 7 minutes and then on your way downtown.

The best part is that it is a "regular" sale even though it's priced for less than a few of the short sales in the neighborhood. Don't worry about waiting for months for a bank to get back to you about whether or not they'll accept your offer. Get a repsonse right away!

Facebook -- Scrabulous -- R.I.P

2008-07-30T07:07:04Z

In two (count 'em two) sections on the Washington Post this morning there are articles about the demise of the Facebook app/game, Scrabulous. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I never downloaded the app or played it. As with more apps on Facebook, it's really hard to tell what they are until you download them. Then, some of the work great, some don't and then some can't keep up with demand and shut themselves off. Weird.

Anyway, here is a FRONT PAGE article in today's Washington Post about Scrabulous. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the HUGE Style Section graphic with a tongue-in-cheek take off on the game lamenting it's elimination in the online version of the Post. I guess it'll come out sooner or later.

Buying a New 'Pooter - Step 2

2008-07-28T21:08:51Z

Well I got the new laptop this morning and I played around with it this afternoon --

getting it connected to my wireless network at home,
downloading Outlook from my Microsoft Exchange Server service provider,
configuring Outlook with Microsoft Exchange Server so my laptop, my desktop, my phone (a Motorola Q with Windows Mobile) and the Internet base Outlook will all synch together when I add a contact or appointment or whatever,
downloading Firefox (which is way better than IE)
downloading Sun Microsystems' Open Office (which is supposed to be like Microsoft Office but FREE)
downloading all the Windows updates that wanted to automatically download after I re-started once
saying "No" to half a dozen applications or other doodads that wanted to download onto my computer or into my Outlook.

Believe it or not, it really only took a couple of hours. Now I have a nice smokin' laptop with a pretty display, great Interent connectivity and some pretty decent productivity software.

The concept was to be able to travel and blog, travel and access my e-mail, contacts and calendar, actually bring something to my clients, if I need to.

Right now, I'm a happy camper. I'm sure I'll run into challenges the first time I try to connect at Starbucks or connect at a client's home. It actually has Bluetooth capability if I were to want to get, say, a wireless printer. But that's for a later date and a couple of more settlements.

A Real Experience With RealBird

2008-07-28T08:13:06Z

As many of my readers know, I'm not shy about posting my experiences with vendors (see my series of posts on an experience with a service provider that was less than optimal).

So I'm very pleased to write about an experience that was, in my view, superlative. In this case it's about RealBird.

I was first introduced to RealBrid by my VA, Virtual Business Solutions, as a way to get my listings out into the public eye complete with great mapping. It was FREE! So, since the price was right I told her to go ahead and post my listings.

It turned out really well and according to my VA --

They are the best product available because they do not limit the number of flyers or photos, the flyers don’t expire, they have the mapping capability with Google Earth, they have the easiest interface to upload information – no small boxes to fill out, just cut/paste features, they have solid or gradient backgrounds, slide show and widgets, and the syndication is the fastest – on Zillow in 1 day.

I have to agree. The widgets they provide (see this listing post as an example) are far superior to anything else I've used and the other features (Google Earth!) just blow me away. And they go this cool new Active Rain widget (see sidebar)

But here's the best part.

I was having a little bit of a support issue. Nothing huge. More like a question. My VA posted it to RealBird Saturday night and I was getting responses on Sunday morning --- SUNDAY. Quick answers. Good answers. Friendly answers. For FREE!

I'm a believer. Thanks, RealBird.

One Door Closes...Will Another Open

2008-07-24T14:01:27Z

Well, it's almost a done deal. All that's needed is for "W" to sign the thing and it's LAW. No more Ameridream or Nehemiah help for the moderate and income buyer. On top of that, the FHA downpayment is moving UP from 3% to 3.5%

Borrowers can still get gifts from family members and the like. One of my loan officer contacts tells me, "Think 1990 again and you have the financing down pat : )

Of course, the NAR stats for exisitng housing came out today, too, and sales are down 2.5%.but if you've been selling real estate this year you probabyl figured out there's a drop in sales.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is saying that mortgage applications are down, too.

Fellow AR Blogger and Mobile Home Financing Specialists, Rebecca Schrader, has been commenting on my previous posting that she thinks it's about time for the DPA programs to go away and get people to face the fact that they need to save money to buy a house.

On the one hand, I agree. People certainly need to be more responsible and a little more far sighted when prepapring to buy a home. Yet, there is part of me that has empathy for the Sellers who are seeing the equity in their home erode because no one out there can buy it.

Maybe it's just a matter of the chickens coming home to roost.

There's an old saying about how when one door closes another opens. I'm looking for an open door....that doesn't necessarily lead into a foreclosed house!

Down Payment Assistance about to Go Bye-Bye

2008-07-22T07:52:43Z

In today's Washington Post Business section there is this article about the pending demise of Down Payment Assistance for home buyres from the likes of the Nehemiah Program and Ameridream. It seems that HUD has finally convinced Congress that Down Payment Assistance, as it may come from one of these organizations or one similar to them, is bad, bad, bad.

The rationale is that when borrowers/home buyers have absolutely no money invested in the purchase of their home they are more likely to "walk away" when times get tough and they need to make tough financial decisions about their spending habits (Lexus? House payment? Kid's private school?).

This doesn't mean that Down Payment Assistance is completely vaporizing. A home buyer can still obtain a gift from a family member or charitable organization, like a church, as long as it's not a way for the Seller to provide the money through a third party charitable organization.

This will just make it harder still for the vast number of moderate income folks who haven't managed to be able to save the money they'll need for the 3% down payment requirement from FHA. Since this will effectively reduce the pool of potential buyers it will make all that more difficult to sell houses continuing the downward pressure on home prices.

So, the trend continues. Mortgages are going to be more and more difficult to obtain. Houses will take longer to sell with home sellers forfeiting the equity built up in their homes if they find themselves in a position of needing to sell (a job relocation, divorce, illness, retirement and so on).

I'm all for responsible lending to qualified borrowers who can demonstrate a need to repay their loan. I'm concerned that in our consumer economy with our negative savings rate if putting a stranglehold on mortgages is helpful or not.

Buying a New 'Pooter - Step 1

2008-07-19T18:06:51Z

I haven't bought new computer in a long, long time. Maybe 3-4 years. And that was a desktop. The last time I bought a laptop there was something called Windows ME as the operating system and that lasted about two months before XP came out.

Anyway, I'm getting tired of being the only one in Starbucks without a computer hooked up to the WiFi or being in a hotel room stuck with watching television or paying big bucks per minute to use the hotel's business center, assuming they have one.

My desktop has been getting slower and slower. It doesn't run the new MS Office programs because it only has a half gig of memory and the 30 GB hard drive is almost full.

So, I talked to people and looked on the web and I finally decided on Dell. Yeah, Michael Dell needs my money so I went online and started clicking some buttons.

Here's the catch, though. I wanted something with just the operating system on it. None of that nice software companies like Dell like to put on there because they're paid to do it. I don't care if it's "free" to me. So when I was clicking through the website, I thought I had found just the thing. I added the max memory I could and ordered an external mouse and carrying case, gave them my credit card number and whoosh!

Lo and Behold, when the confirmation came back it had some of the "free" software I was hoping to avoid. So it isn't until after they process the order that they tell you this. Here's the other thing -- on the website it says shipping in 3-5 days. I must've misread that one, too. I won't be shipped from Dell for 3-5 days and I'll get it sometime after that depending on UPS or whoever they use.

But, hey, I'm still OK. The rubber will really hit the road when the thing arrives and I see how easy it is to connect to my wireless router (a Verizon supplied router for my FioS connection) and to the Internet, in general....and the download Outlook from my MS Exchange service so I can sync with my phone....and download Firefox because I can't stand Internet Explorer...and I'm going to try out Sun Microsystems Open Office. It's free. If it's anything like it's advertised it'll save me $350 +.

If this works OK, desktop here I come!

(apologies to my good AR friend and referral buddy, Pat Kennedy. I just couldn't bring myself to buy a Mac)

Contractor or DIYer

2008-07-18T14:48:06Z

An update on my client's progress with his buddy, the DIYer, who has been working on this poor guy's townhouse for the last month. Oh yeah, vacant townhouse. So there's nothing in the way. No one living there to schedule around. Just go in, do the job, get paid and get out.

But the contractor, er, DiYer is the guy's buddy and the client is now living in GA (not exactly down the block from this townhouse in Laurel, MD) so there's no sense of urgency to complete the job. Evidently, the DIYer is running into cost overruns. I kinda figured this out when the conversation with the Seller went something like this:

"They should be done, fir sure, next week. I'm not spending any more money. I've already spent $20,000 getting this place ready and I don't have any more!! And I'll need to sell it as quickly as possible. Hopefully get a contract on it by the end of August."

I feel for the guy. He's the husband of an older couple. This was their first house and they lived in it for 28 years before deciding to move to GA to retire. He's heard the market's bad and that there are lots of foreclosures but he doesn't really fully grasp that it'll take a little longer than a month to sell his house unless he really takes a beating on it.

But as I mentioned in my previous post, he thought he was going t be saving money and time and all kinds of things by asking his buddy - who has a real day job not related to home improvement - to do the work.

So, we wait another week. Hopefully, the DIYer will actually be done and everything will be ready to go and I can flip the switch to put it on the market. Hopefully, the Seller will agree to the "fire sale" price.

But since I'm not running for President, I'm not selling hope. I have to be able to sell this town house. Let's hope (oops) the DIYyer is really done by next weekend.

When the Contractor is the Seller's Friend

2008-07-17T19:14:16Z

A few posts ago I blogged about the injustice of personal friends or family members not approaching me to represent them as their Realtor. Many readers commented that it was probably a blessing in disguise.

Well, now I'm running into a situation where the Seller is using a friend to do some contracting work on his now vacant house. The poor Seller has moved away and actually bought another house in another State. He was hoping to have the place fixed up a bit (it really needed it). When the Seller was telling me what he planned to do - paint, new flooring, new bathroom vanities and some other stuff - I was thrilled to hear it.

Then came the "bad" news. The Seller had a good friend who was going to do the work or sub it out. This friend is a bit of a perfectionist and he had done a really noce job on his own house.

Screeeech! (that's the sound of a tone arm running across a record) What did the Seller just say? This contractor is actually just a buddy who happens to be a decent DIYer.

Oh well. Maybe it'll be OK.....or not.

I visited the house about a week after the Sellers moved out and the place had been ripped apart in preparation for a new floor, etc. OK. So far, so good. I went back three weeks later and the place looked pretty much the same except this time the guy was at the house laying the hard wood flooring.

He had gotten a couple of rooms done but he still had a long way to go and then there was the painting, etc. I struck up a conversation with him which is where I learned this guy really had another totally different day job and that his son was supposed to be helping him but was on vacation for a week and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Sigh.

I get a call a week later from the Seller saying he's coming up (from Georgia) in two weeks (are you getting the picture that this is taking a long, long time) and that he really didn't expect things to take this long and he'll really need to sell fast (which means at a low, low price which he doesn't expect).

So this poor Seller has wasted at least two months of time with repairs and the place still isn't market ready. I don't know how much money he saved having his friend, the DIYer, do the work but it can't be anywhere near what he might have been able to make if he had called a real contractor that would have knocked out the work in one or two weeks.

If I had a friend who was a real contractor and that's what he/she did full time, I'd be tempted to sign them up. My buddy I watch football with and did a good job on his rec room. Maybe not so much.

Which House Sells Faster? A Million or $355K?

2008-07-16T21:49:47Z

I would really like to sell more million dollar homes and, until just recently, I thought it was all about the commission. Now, I'm convinced I was all wrong.

I have this nice listing in Bethesda, MD that belongs to some wonderful past (and present) clients of mine that listed for $1,050,000. I have another listing in another part of the beautiful MD Suburbs of DC that is nice, is not as spacious or in the "correct" school district listed for $354,900.

The folks who own the million dollar home have no problem fixing the place up and making whatever repairs need to be made. The guy in the $355K house is a retiree who doesn't have a lot of money to make the place all nice and fancy. But, here is the real kicker: the million dollar got lots and lots of showings and a contract in less than 2 months. The $355K house has been sitting for almost 4 months, been through several price reductions and hardly anyone even comes to look at it.

I guess it just confirms something that I intuitively knew: that the upper price levels (and I'll concede here that there are even higher priced homes in the area than this one) have very little problem attracting buyers because the mortgage isn't the problem. 20% down? No prob. $30,000 escrow deposit? Let me get out my checkbook.

On the other hand, first time buyers are struggling to put the earnest money deposit together and have a hard time qualifying for an FHA mortgage. This is truly a tale of two suburbs! Or as John Edwards used to like to say, "two Americas".

It's a shame, really, because I really like the retiree and really would like to see him get a buyer so he can move onto the next Chapter in his life. But it is what it is.

College Park, MD: 9227 St. Andrews, College Park Woods - PRICED TO SELL!

2008-07-12T10:19:55Z

Take advantage of one of the most dynamic buyer's markets in history! Don't miss out on a chance to own a part of the American Dream in beautiful College Park, MD. This spacious ranch style home boasts hardwood floors, an updated kitchen and more. The best part is that it is priced BELOW virtually every other home in the neighborhood of College Park Woods. Don't spend months fighting with a bank over a "short sale" when you can move into this lovely home immediately.

College Park, MD: 3519 Marlbrough, College Park Woods, PRICE REDUCED!

2008-07-12T10:16:38Z

If you've been looking for a gorgeous home with plenty of bedrooms, a large family room and spacious back yard then you can stop looking!! This 4-level Split has plenty of room and is located in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in College Park, MD. It's near METRO, the University of MD, USDA, NASA and more.

Clinton, MD: 5709 Butterfield Drive, in Chris Mar Manor, $339,900

2008-07-12T10:08:37Z

Traditional Colonial on Large Lot just minutes to Andrews AFB or the Beltway. Enjoy sunlight streaming into a cozy family room through picturesque sliding glass doors providing a view to a spacious, private back yard and custom multi-level deck perfect for grilling or relaxing with your favorite beverage. Newly painted throughout with a new roof installed in 2008. Separate DR and LR. Lots of potential in a large, unfinished basement.

Fannie and Freddie are About to Scream "Uncle" (Sam)

2008-07-10T15:47:31Z

In this news report out from Bloomberg there are strong indications that the two secondary mortgage market behemoths will be the next ones bailed out by you and me -- the American taxpayer.

It seems that there the current housing market combined with the ever increasing default rate is causing a liquidity crisis with the two entities virtually every retail (i.e., residential) mortgage broker and bank depend on for money.

I don't want Fannie and Freddie to go belly up -- don't get me wrong. After all, if they went down for the count it would make the little Bear Stearns thing look like a picnic. What I'm a little concerned about is how much more can our government expect us to pay?

We have the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have oil increasing almost daily and food not far behind. Unemployment is inching up.

If Fannie and Freddie come under total government control (they are now quasi- governmental "Governement Sponsored Enterprises") you can just imagine what your tax bill will look like!

Meanwhile, Congress and the President continue to dither.

Pandering

2008-07-10T09:34:07Z

In an interesting article in the July 9th Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank writes about the two Presidential candidates pandering to the League of United Latin American Citizens. In other words, both McCain and Obama were telling their audience what they thought they wanted to hear.

How does this relate to real estate?

I am often surprised at myself, and other Realtors, at how often we will tell Sellers exactly what they want to hear in order to get them to sign on with us to sell their home.

"Oh yes, Mr.and Mrs. Seller, this is such a vibrant shade of Barbie Doll pink for your daughter's room! I'm sure the next owners will love it!"

"My God! What gorgeous ceiling fans!"

"You know this house really has character"

and the best

"I'm sure we can sell it for [insert the Seller's fanatsy price here]". Not a problem."

Of course, now that it's such a strong Buyer's market, I find myself more and more willing to just tell the Sellers the truth.

"No. You'll never get that price for this house in this market."

"Yes. You'll probably pay anywhere from 3% to 6% toward the Buyer's closing costs."

"Yes. You'll need to make [insert repairs here] and install new carpet and re-paint."

"No. It won't sell in a week unless you price it [insert really low, low price here]."

Of course, I don't get the listing every time like that because some other Realtor will pander to the Seller.

I wish I could say I'm perfect and that I tell every potential Seller client the absolute truth about their house. I'm not. I know they come back with stories about how much they spent to build the deck or install new kitchen cabinets or replace the 20 year old HVAC.

I feel for them. I wish I really could get back the money they've spent ont he house. I wish I really could get them the money they "need" to move on to their next home.

But, the fact of the matter is that by pandering to the Sellers just to get a listing in the hopes it will sell is a waste of time, money and energy for both the Seller and me.